CC Mat Club has strong showing at AAU State Championships

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — McCrae Hagarty placed second in the B-Division 100-pound bracket at the Iowa Kids AAU State Folkstyle Championships.

He doesn’t have to like it.

“I think the ref missed the call,” Hagarty said of his championship bout that took place Feb. 28 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, a week after the Iowa State High School Championships at the same site.

“I thought I had both of my feet inside the circle,” Hagarty said of a would-be takedown attempt, “but he didn’t give it to me.”

The 4-3 decision loss prevented Hagarty from winning his second-straight State Folkstyle title. But Hagarty will live to wrestle another day, and may have some questionable calls go his way for a change in the future.

Chase Crooks, Hagarty’s Charles City Mat Club teammate, had a little better luck as he recorded two falls on both sides of a sudden victory on way to winning the B-Division (grades 5-6) heavyweight title.

“It’s a great feeling,” said Crooks, who has been wrestling for seven years and now has his first state title. “This is the hardest I’ve ever worked and I’m going to continue to work hard.”

The CC Mat Club qualified eight wrestlers to the Iowa AAU Kids State Championships.

“They all had to place in their districts to qualify so it’s great to get that many down,” CC Mat Club coach Dennis Sonberg said.

Among the club qualifiers were Carter Proffitt, who placed third in the C-Division (grades 7-8) 115-pound bracket; Tate White, who placed fifth in the A-Division (grades 3-4) 108-pound bracket; Elliott Sinwell, who placed sixth in the C-Division 135-pound bracket; Jack Sindlinger, who placed eighth in the C-Division 171-pound bracket; Cael Bohlen, who qualified as a B-Division 108-pounder; and Logan Luft, who qualified as a C-Division 85-pounder.

“Yeah, it was just like is was for the high school championships,” Sonberg said of the capacity-stretched turnout at Well Fargo Arena for the Kids Championship. “You just look at the number of kids alone who wrestled that weekend. You got four qualifiers per class from about 10 districts …

With a little math assistance from fellow CC Mat Club coaches, Sonberg estimated about 3,000 wrestlers participated.

“But only a part of that made it to Sunday,” Sonberg said, “and we had six guys place and make it to Sunday.”

Last Thursday, the club was preparing its younger wrestlers for the Super Pee Wee State Championships that was held this past weekend in Waterloo at Young Arena.

“For this you didn’t have to qualify,” Sonberg said of his young wrestlers in grades K-2. “For many, this will be their first state tournament.”

For many of the club’s younger wrestlers, this is also their first experience at hard work, and some needed a little extra encouragement to get through the conditioning drills.

But according to bronze medal-winner Proffitt, hard work has its rewards.

“It was awesome to get a chance to wrestle in front of so many people,” he said.